From: mhsu@lonestar.utsa.edu (Melinda . Hsu   )
Subject: Re: The arrogance of Christians
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio
Lines: 74

I'd like to share my thoughts on this topic of "arrogance of
Christians" and look forward to any responses.  In my
encounters with Christians, I find myself dismayed by their
belief that their faith is total truth.  According to them,
their beliefs come from the Bible and the bible is the word of
God and God is truth - thus they know the truth.  This stance
makes it difficult to discuss other faiths with them and my own
hesitations about Christianity because they see no other way.
Their way is the 'truth.'

But I see their faith arising from a willful choice to believe
a particular way.  That choice is part faith and part reason,
but it seems to me a choice.

My discussions with some Christians remind me of schoolyard
discussions when I was in grade school:

A kid would say, "All policemen are jerks!"  I'd ask, "How do
you know?"  "Because my daddy told me so!"  "How do you know
you're daddy is right?"  "He says he's always right!"

Well the argument usually stops right there.  In the end,
aren't we all just kids, groping for the truth?  If so, do we have
the authority to declare all other beliefs besides our own as
false?

-------------

This is only my third time browsing through this newsgroup.  I
apologize if I'm covering tired old ground.  Some of the
discussions on this topic have piqued my interest and I welcome
any comments.

| Louis J. Kim                      ---  _ O                PH:512-522-5556 |
| Southwest Research Institute    ---  ,/  |\/'            FAX:512-522-3042 |
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-- 

[I'm sort of mystified about how a Christian might respond to this.  I
can understand criticisms of Christianity that say there's not enough
evidence to believe it, or that there's just as good evidence for
other religions.  I don't agree, but clearly there are plenty of
intelligent people who don't find the evidence convincing.  But that
doesn't seem to be your point.  Rather, you seem upset that people who
believe Christianity is true also believe that things which contradict
it are false.

This suggests a model of spiritual things that's rather different than
the Christian one.  It sounds more like an existentialist view, where
people choose what value to follow, but there's no actual independent
spiritual reality, and so no way to say that a specific choice is in
some unique sense right.  This sort of model -- with modifications of
one sort or another -- may be appropriate for some religions.  But
Christianity is in its essense a "historical" religion.  That is, it's
based on the concept that there are actual spiritual entities out
there, that one of them has intervened in history in specific ways,
and that we see evidence of that in history.  In the "mundane" world,
we are not free to choose how things work.  When we drop something, it
falls (aside from well-defined situations where it doesn't).  The
Christian concept is that spiritual matters, there is also an actual
external reality.  I hope we're all honest enough not to claim that we
have perfect understanding.  But while we may not think we know
everything, we are confident that we know some things.  And that
implies that we think things that contradict them are false.  I don't
see how else we could proceed.

This needn't result in arrogance.  I'm certainly interested in talking
with people of other religions.  They may have things to teach me, and
even if they don't, I respect them as fellow human beings.  But it's
got to be possible to respect people and also think that on some
matters they are wrong.  Maybe even disasterously wrong.

--clh]